Last year, I took a last minute solo trip to Toronto – it’s a long story, but safe to say the reasoning was quintessentially Carly. I was there for just a few days but, true to form, filled every second of the time with activities and plenty of food (and walking).
Compared with when I worked in admissions, I don’t travel much on my own anymore. Before I went on work travel for the first time, I was concerned about how I was going to spend that much time without constant chatter, especially at mealtime. I love to talk!
And then I found I loved it. I’d tuck away into the corner of a quiet restaurant and read my Kindle, or make a stop by the water and watch boats, or find some historic site to swing by between high school visits. So when I needed to take a mid-week trip abroad for a few days for the sake of government-issued identification, I took the opportunity to set off on my own.
I was in the middle of reading a different book when I took the trip and consciously but uncharacteristically put that one down in favor of this one. I wanted a companion for the trip – something that would be forever linked to this little bubble of time I spent away.
Normal People was on every book list I’d seen in the preceding months – so much so that it felt almost urgent to read it. Sometimes you just don’t want to miss out on the trend! It’s a book that brings you through the relationship of two people from high school through college. You’ll see a lot of characters pop up time and again, and you’ll continue to discover things about the protagonists as the book continues.
The phrase that follows Sally Rooney is the “Salinger of the Snapchat generation” – I’ll admit it feels at least a little reductive, but I can acknowledge where that comes from. They both create characters that offer insight not only into their era but also into their experience. They both flawlessly capture all of the nuances and frustrations that go along with simply existing at certain ages and points in time that you feel it deeply inside of yourself, too. It’s accessible writing without being simple.
Above all, Normal People is deeply relatable in its reflection of complicated emotion, even if your personal experience is different. Much like in real life, you have moments when you feel wildly connected to the characters, when you’re rooting for them…and plenty of other moments when you want to shake them and tell them exactly what you think. Marianne and Connell are frustrating and lovely and confused and sympathetic at various points throughout the book.
Rooney does a phenomenal job of building something immersive – the characters go through environments both familiar and unfamiliar, but as the reader, you never feel abandoned or left out. You’re right there with them – figuring it out alongside them, like normal people do.
You’ll like this if: you want to read something that somehow feels both current and nostalgic all at once, with well-developed characters and complicated situations. And if you don’t mind a lack of quotation marks.
Happy reading!
Other Suggested Content:
– “Even If You Beat Me“, Sally Rooney’s first essay. Don’t miss this one – if nothing else, for this perfect line and all that leads to it: “Success doesn’t come from within; it’s given to you by other people, and other people can take it away.”
– “The Cult of Sally Rooney” from Vox – I get it!
– The BBC series, coming to Hulu on April 29
carlyreads 